Hoodie. Molesworth Mrs.
she said, "may Duke walk with you a little? He says he's tired."
"Of course, poor dear," said Martin; "come here, Master Duke, and you, Miss Hoodie, go on a little with your sister."
Hoodie let go Martin's hand readily enough.
"Wonders will never cease," thought Martin, but alas, her rejoicing was premature. Hoodie let go her hand, but stood stock still without moving.
"No," she said deliberately, "I won't walk with Maudie. Why can't Hec walk with Maudie, and me stay here?"
"Because he's such a little boy, Miss Hoodie dear, and I daresay both he and Master Duke are getting tired. They've had a long walk you know."
Martin was forgetting her own advice to Maudie. He who stopped to reason with Hoodie was lost indeed!
"And so has me had a long walk, and so you might daresay me is tired too," returned Hoodie, standing her ground both actually and figuratively. Two fat little legs apart, two sturdy little feet planted firmly on the ground, there she stood looking up defiantly in Martin's face, armed for the fight.
"Was there ever such a child?" thought poor Martin. Maudie's words had indeed been quickly fulfilled – here already was a case in which the taking-no-notice system was impossible – the child could not be left by herself on the high-road, where according to present appearances it was evidently her intention to stay unless – she got her own way!
"Well, my dear, I daresay you are tired too," said Martin soothingly, "but still not so tired as poor little Duke. You're ever so much bigger you know. Think what tiny little feet your brothers have to trot all along the road on."
"Mines is tiny too. I heard you saying them was very tiny to Mamma one day. And them's just as tired as Duke's; 'cos I'm bigger, my feets have more heavy to carry. I will have your hand, Martin, and I won't walk with ugly Maudie."
"But you must, Miss Hoodie," said Martin, attempting firmness and decision as a last resource.
"But I mustn't, 'cos I won't," said Hoodie.
Martin glanced back along the road despairingly. Several groups of the country people on their way home from church were approaching the little party as they stood on the footpath.
"Do come on, Martin," said Maudie; "it is so horrid for the people to see such a fuss. And then they say all about that we are all naughty. Look, there's farmer Bright and his daughters coming. Do come on – you'll have to let Hoodie walk with you, and Hec'll come with me."
"Miss Hoodie," said Martin once more, "you are to walk on with Miss Maudie, do you hear?"
"Yes," said Hoodie, without moving an inch, "I hear, but I won't walk with ugly Maudie."
The Bright family were fast approaching. In despair Martin turned to Hoodie.
"I am obliged to let you walk with me, Miss Julian," she said, solemnly, "because I cannot have every one in the road see how naughty you are. But when we get home I shall speak to your Mamma, and ask her to let you go walks alone. You make us all miserable."
Hoodie took Martin's hand and marched on.
"I should like to go walks alone, werry much," she said, amiably, to which remark Martin did not make any reply.
The Bright family passed them with a friendly word to Martin, saying something in praise of the nice appearance of her little charges. And Hoodie smiled back to farmer Bright, as if she thought herself the best and sweetest-tempered of little girls. Then when they were out of sight, she suddenly dropped Martin's hand.
"I don't want to walk with you. You're an ugly 'sing too," she said. "I like to walk belone, but I would walk with you if I said I would."
And on she marched defiantly, well in front of the whole party. And again poor Martin murmured to herself, – "Was there ever such a child?"
What was Hoodie saying to herself on in front where no one could hear her?
"They don't love me. They like me to be away. Nobody loves poor Hoodie. Hoodie can't be good when nobody loves her. It isn't Hoodie's fault."
And through her babyish brain there ran misty, dreamy ideas of something she would do to make "them" all sorry – she would go away somewhere "far, far," and never come back again. But where? This she could not yet settle about, but fortunately for the peace of the rest of the walk her cogitations kept her quiet till they were all at home again.
Martin's threat of speaking to Hoodie's mother was not at once carried out. And Martin herself began to think better of it when at tea-time Hoodie behaved herself quite respectably. The naughty mood had passed again for the time, it seemed.
Sitting round the table in the intervals of bread-and-butter and honey – for it was Sunday evening, "honey evening" the little boys called it – the children chatted together pleasantly. Martin's story had greatly impressed them.
"Weren't you frightened at first when you saw the big, big doggie, Martin?" said Maudie.
"Might have been a woof," remarked Duke, whose ideas had a knack of getting so well lodged in his brain that it was often difficult to get them out again.
"But there are no wolfs. I told you so before," said Maudie.
"No," said Duke, "you toldened Hoodie so. You didn't tolden me."
"Well, dear Duke, what does it matter?" said Magdalen, with a slight touch of impatience in her tone. "You heard me say it, and you do go on and on so about a thing."
Hoodie looked up with a twinkle in her eyes.
"Peoples always calls each other 'dear' whenever they doesn't like each other," she remarked.
Maudie flashed round upon her.
"That isn't true. I do like Duke – don't I, Duke? And Hec too – don't I love you dearly, Hec and Duke?"
The two little boys clambered down from their chairs, by slow and ponderous degrees, and a hugging match of the three ensued.
"Children, children," cried Martin, "you know it's against the rules for you to get down from your chairs at tea. Miss Maudie, dear, you shouldn't encourage it."
"But Hoodie said unkind 'sings to Maudie, and we had to kiss dear Maudie," said the little boys. "Naughty Hoodie," and they glanced round indignantly at Hoodie.
A hard look came over Hoodie's face.
"Always naughty Hoodie," she muttered to herself. "Nobody loves Hoodie. Nebber mind. Don't care."
"Little boys," said Martin, "you must go back to your seats and finish your tea. And don't call Miss Hoodie naughty for nothing at all but a little joke."
Hoodie gave a quick glance at Martin.
"Martin," she said, gravely, "if there is no woofs now, is there any grandmothers?"
"Any grandmothers, Miss Hoodie?" repeated Martin. "How do you mean, my dear? of course every one has a grandmother, or has had."
"Oh!" said Hoodie; "I didn't know. And is grandmothers always in cottages?"
"Oh, you silly girl," said Maudie, laughing; "of course not. Don't you remember our grandmother? She was here two years ago. But I suppose you're too little to remember."
"Don't laugh at her for not understanding, Miss Maudie," said Martin; "besides, don't you remember your grandmother's address is Parkwood Cottage? Very likely she's thinking of that."
"Yes," said Hoodie, "I was 'sinking of zat. I want a grandmother in a cottage. Grandmother in a cottage would be very kind, and there is no woofs."
"Oh no, Miss Hoodie, there are no wolves," said Martin; "all the wolves were sent away long, long ago. Now, dears, you must have your hands washed and your hairs brushed to go down to the drawing-room."
Hoodie was very quiet that evening. Her father noticed it after the children had gone up to bed again, and said to her mother that he was in hopes the child was going to turn over a new leaf. And her mother replied with a smile that she had been speaking to her very seriously